Abstract
There is a growing body of literature on future-regarding institutions in democratic systems, with most discussions focusing on their roles in the input and output phases of public governance. However, their role in the throughput phase has received less attention. This article addresses this gap by examining how these institutions operate across all three phases of public governance, focusing particularly on their contribution to its normative legitimacy. Theoretically, we contend that future-regarding institutions can enhance normative legitimacy in three interrelated dimensions: input, by representing the potential interests of future generations; throughput, by strengthening policymakers’ ex-ante accountability for policy choices with long-term consequences and by improving the transparency, inclusiveness and openness of governance processes; and output, by helping reduce harmful short-termism. To contextualize this theoretical argument, we focus on two prominent cases from different democratic jurisdictions: the Committee for the Future in Finland and the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales. These cases show that such institutions actively engage across all phases of public governance. They also suggest that contributions to throughput legitimacy may complement the other two forms of legitimacy, although these institutions must carefully navigate the potential tension between improving procedural quality and enhancing effectiveness in addressing long-term policy challenges.
Keywords
Introduction
During the “institutional turn” in political philosophy, accompanied by explorations of intergenerational justice (Gardiner, 2022: 157), there has been growing scholarly attention to “future-regarding institutions” in democratic systems (MacKenzie, 2021: chap. 7; Smith, 2023: 157). These institutions may take the form of parliamentary committees or public bodies that maintain arm’s-length relationships with governments or other elected officials. Although not always explicitly addressed, much existing literature has focused primarily on their roles during the input and output phases of public governance (Beckman and Uggla, 2016).
In the input phase, the role of future-regarding institutions is often characterized as representing the potential interests of future generations—those yet to be born—in current political decision-making processes (e.g. Gonzalez-Ricoy and Rey, 2019; Jones et al., 2018; MacKenzie, 2021; Rose, 2019; Smith, 2021). At the output phase, these institutions are expected to help mitigate “harmful short-termism” (Caney, 2016: 138; see also Boston, 2017; González- Ricoy, 2024; Koskimaa and Raunio, 2020; Smith, 2021). They do this by shaping laws and policies that give due weight to the long-term interests of current generations and/or future generations.
However, this focus overlooks the important role future-regarding institutions may play during the throughput phase of public governance—the processes between political input and policy output. To address this gap, the article examines how these institutions engage across all three phases of public governance and how their involvement contributes to such governance.
Theoretically, we argue that future-regarding institutions can play a role in enhancing the normative legitimacy of public governance by engaging in these phases, drawing primarily on the Scharpf-Schmidt framework of legitimation (e.g. Scharpf, 1999; Schmidt, 2013). By normative legitimacy, we refer to the acceptability or justification for exercising political power or authority (Buchanan and Keohane, 2006; Peter, 2017). 1 The Scharpf–Schmidt framework helps identify distinct “pathways to legitimacy,” generating input, throughput, or output legitimacy from each phase of public governance (Taylor, 2019: 214).
More specifically, we argue that representing the potential interests of future generations can be understood as a means of enhancing input legitimacy. We also contend that reducing harmful short-termism can serve as a way of generating output legitimacy. Furthermore, the legitimacy lens highlights a potential—though thus far somewhat neglected—role for future-regarding institutions during the throughput phase. If these institutions help improve the procedural quality of public governance, they contribute to throughput legitimacy, as we shall argue.
To maintain generality, the theoretical argument outlined above will remain abstract. Accordingly, later in the article, we contextualize how future-regarding institutions might contribute to normative legitimacy in real-world settings, thereby making the argument more concrete. We do so by identifying the functions these institutions perform across the three phases of public governance, focusing on two prominent examples.
The first example is the Committee for the Future, a parliamentary committee in Finland. The second is the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, an arm’s-length body of the Welsh Government. These cases demonstrate that both institutions engage across all three phases of public governance, rather than only the input and output phases. Through such engagement, they perform functions that can help enhance the normative legitimacy of public governance, even though they lack the authority to directly scrutinize draft bills.
This article offers new insights into the role of future-regarding institutions within democratic systems, particularly in terms of how their contributions to throughput legitimacy may complement—or, in some cases, undermine—the other two types of legitimacy. Specifically, we suggest that contributing to throughput legitimacy may enable them to represent the potential interests of future generations in ways that go beyond tokenism. While such contributions may also help mitigate harmful short-termism, they also have the potential to reinforce or even exacerbate it.
Taken together, future-regarding institutions can help raise the procedural standards of public governance and, in doing so, foster democratic systems that are more normatively legitimate over the long term. However, the extent to which these institutions contribute to input and output legitimacy may be influenced by the roles they play during the throughput phase.
The remainder of the article proceeds as follows: Section 2 theorizes the pathways to the normative legitimacy of public governance from a long-term perspective, unpacking the potential contributions of future-regarding institutions to this legitimacy. Section 3 presents two examples of such institutions—the Finnish Committee for the Future and the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales—to illustrate their engagement across the three phases of public governance and to explore their contributions to normative legitimacy. Section 4 discusses how the functions performed by future-regarding institutions in the throughput phase of public governance may relate to their contributions to input and output legitimacy. Section 5 concludes with suggestions for future research by identifying questions that remain unanswered in this article.
Pathways to Legitimacy From a Long-Term Perspective
Three Domains of Legitimation
According to Scharpf (1999), there are two distinct pathways to creating or enhancing the legitimacy of governance: input and output legitimacy. In this framework, input legitimacy flows from institutional arrangements that make political decision-makers responsive to the preferences of citizens through their political participation, such as in voting. Scharpf (1999: 6) calls this type of legitimacy “government by the people.” By contrast, output legitimacy is concerned with the quality of the decisions that governance institutions make, focusing on “government for the people” (Scharpf, 1999: 11). Therefore, output legitimacy is derived from the capacity of a government to solve collective problems that individual actions, market mechanisms, or volunteer cooperation fail to solve.
The third type of legitimacy—throughput legitimacy—opens up the “black box” of governance situated between political input and policy output (Schmidt, 2013: 5). Throughput legitimacy is defined as “a procedural criterion concerned with the quality of the governance processes” (Schmidt and Wood, 2019: 728) and is often described as “governance with the people” (e.g. Chatzopoulou, 2015: 161; Schmidt, 2013: 9). In other words, this form of legitimacy pertains to the process by which decisions are made (Steffek, 2019). For instance, low-quality governance processes may raise concerns about the adequacy of political input or the effectiveness of policy performance (Schmidt and Wood, 2019). Throughput legitimacy is intended to complement—rather than substitute for—input and output legitimacy, as high-quality processes alone cannot compensate for the absence of political input or poor policy outcomes (Schmidt, 2013; Steffek, 2019).
In this article, we adopt these three domains of legitimation—input, throughput and output—each of which offers a distinct pathway to normative legitimacy. Public governance may require politicians or other public officials to exercise political power or authority to steer and manage the public affairs and resources of a nation or region over extended time horizons (Boston, 2017; Kyllönen et al., 2023). However, long-term policy issues are generally not a primary focus in discussions of legitimacy pathways within the aforementioned literature (e.g. Scharpf, 1999; Schmidt, 2013). Accordingly, we examine what is required to enhance the normative legitimacy of public governance while extending its temporal perspective. In doing so, we explore how future-regarding institutions may contribute to the normative legitimacy of public governance.
Input Legitimacy
Input legitimacy focuses on government by the people or the demos. In the literature on normative democratic theory, the question of who should be regarded as a member of the demos has been a subject of debate (Miller, 2020). Several scholars regard the all-affected principle as a plausible criterion for identifying the demos (e.g. Eckersley, 2004; Ekeli, 2009; Goodin, 2007). Roughly, this principle states, “Everyone who is affected by the decisions of a government should have the right to participate in that government” (Dahl, 1990: 49).
Advocates of the all-affected principle typically argue for expanding the boundary of a demos beyond the existing territorially defined state because the state’s decisions can significantly affect the interests of those outside that state. Indeed, Goodin (2007), a forceful defender of the all-affected principle, notes that the principle’s logical implication is to expand the boundary of the demos to the point where it is global and timeless. According to him, the all-affected principle implies, “Virtually (maybe literally) everyone in the world—and indeed everyone in all possible future worlds—should be entitled to vote on any proposal” (Goodin, 2007: 55). Therefore, for Goodin, the current demos should, in principle, include current and future generations whose interests are possibly affected by current political decisions. Similarly, according to Ekeli’s (2009: 445) understanding of the all-affected principle, “democratic decisions that significantly bear upon the lives of posterity cannot be regarded as legitimate unless future people have been given a voice in the decision-making process.”
Given that future generations cannot participate in current political decision-making processes, numerous ideas have recently been proposed to represent their potential interests (e.g. Dobson, 1996; Ekeli, 2009; Kavka and Warren, 1983; Rose, 2019). These ideas deviate from the “standard account of political representation” (Rehfeld, 2006: 3), which requires the relationship of authorization and accountability between the representative and the represented.
Here, we focus on two prominent models of the representation of the potential interests of future generations: surrogate and proxy representation (Gonzalez-Ricoy and Rey, 2019; Rose, 2019). Surrogate representation, initially proposed by Mansbridge (2003), occurs when a “self-appointed representative” who receives authorization from and is electorally accountable to an “authorizing constituency” provides a political presence for “affected constituencies” whose interests are affected or possibly affected by policies but who are not part of electoral constituencies that can determine those policies (Montanaro, 2012: 1104). Put differently, in this concept, individuals or organizations that make claims to represent future generations (i.e. self-appointed representatives) can represent future generations when they introduce the potential interests of future generations (i.e. affected constituencies) into the current political decision-making process, provided that they receive authorization from and are electorally accountable to voters of the current generation (i.e. authorizing constituencies).
Building on Rehfeld’s (2006) “general theory of political representation,” Rose (2019) conceptualizes the idea of proxy representation of future generations. Proxy representation of future generations occurs when individual(s) or organization(s), selected through certain rules of recognition, introduce the potential interests of future generations into the current political decision-making process (Rose, 2019, 2023). For example, a person can become a proxy representative of future generations when selection agents, such as elected politicians or ministries, appoint the person, according to legal rule, as a special guardian to protect the potential interests of future generations (Rose, 2023). Unlike surrogate representation, proxy representation of future generations can occur without the relationship of authorization and electoral accountability between the representative of future generations and the voters.
An objector might question the claim that representing future generations can enhance the legitimacy of public governance. For instance, Beckman (2023: especially 406–407) argues that even if representing future generations is possible, future generations cannot enjoy “constitutional power,” which refers to the capacity to participate in decisions on creating constitutional frameworks and to amend the norms of such frameworks. For Beckman (2023), because constitutional empowerment is a fundamental requirement for democratic legitimacy, fully achieving intergenerational democratic legitimacy is impossible. Thus, to claim that representing the potential interests of future generations in political decision-making enhances the input legitimacy of public governance, the following two premises must be true: First, future generations must be considered part of the current demos, and second, input legitimacy must be generated by representing the members of the current demos.
Output Legitimacy
Although output legitimacy is associated with the effectiveness of governance for the people, it does not simply result from meeting citizens’ immediate desires or demands (Schmidt, 2020: 32). Given that some policy issues, such as climate change and infrastructure management, must consider a timeframe of several decades or more into the future (Boston, 2017: 13–14; Kyllönen et al., 2023: 4), output legitimacy should also depend on the effectiveness of public policies in solving long-term collective problems that have consequences in the future. Policies that entail short-term costs for greater long-term benefits, such as climate policy, education reform and infrastructure management, are often known as “policy investments” (Jacobs, 2011, 2016). Harmful short-termism hinders the implementation of policy investments because it is associated with prioritizing short-term net benefits at the cost of longer-term ones. Accordingly, addressing harmful short-termism can reduce obstacles to making policy investments and thus help governance authorities solve long-term collective problems.
There are two prominent measures to reduce harmful short-termism: electoral insulation and political constraint (González-Ricoy, 2024). Electoral insulation aims to shield policymaking from pressures to break political commitments for long-term policy benefits by delegating authority from elected politicians to arm’s length bodies, such as advisory bodies and agencies (Brunner et al., 2012; Jacobs and Matthews, 2017). While advisory bodies are given the authority to advise and monitor the government’s performance on a regular basis, agencies are authorized to implement specific policies on behalf of the government (Brunner et al., 2012). Political constraint aims to bind elected politicians to a particular course of action by establishing rules from which deviation is costly, such as hypothecated taxes and trust funds (González-Ricoy, 2024; Jacobs and Matthews, 2017).
In addition to electoral insulation and political constraint, Boston (2017: 190–193) identifies other measures that can motivate policymakers or strengthen their capacity, thus helping to reduce harmful short-termism. One potential measure is to change policymakers’ values and goals that prioritize short-term benefits at the cost of long-term ones, extending the temporal gaze of their policy choices. A second measure is to incentivize policymakers to give due weight to long-term policy consequences through, for example, changing public opinion, voters’ preferences and political culture. A third potential measure is to enhance policymakers’ capacity to analyze long-term collective problems and exercise foresight, for example, through better information and analytical resources.
Throughput Legitimacy
In a landmark analysis, Schmidt (2013, 2020) identifies the following normative criteria for evaluating throughput legitimacy: the accountability of policymakers, and the transparency, openness and inclusiveness of the governance processes. 2
Accountability
Accountability is often considered “the most important aspect of throughput legitimacy” (Schmidt, 2020: 42). According to Schmidt and Wood (2019: 732), “With the concept of accountability for elected officials, we need to be careful to differentiate between political actors being ‘held accountable’ by citizens through elections (input legitimacy) and by their reason-giving in public forums (throughput legitimacy).” Thus, electoral accountability is not an attribute of the governance process contributing to throughput legitimacy. Traditionally, the term “accountability” has been understood as “giving an account of, explaining, and justifying one’s actions to those to whom one is responsible” (Mansbridge, 2014: 55), and it is through this traditional understanding that accountability associated with throughput legitimacy is observed. In this sense of accountability, when decision-makers are held accountable for their decisions, it means that they give an account of, explain and justify those decisions to the ones they are responsible for.
The longer the lag between policy choices and their consequences, the more difficult it becomes for decision-makers to account for the outcomes of their decisions. Indeed, if a policy choice leads to harmful consequences in the distant future, the policymakers will have left their office when those consequences are manifested (Mashaw, 2014). Still, decision-makers can explain and justify the reasons for a decision before the outcomes manifest themselves (Mashaw, 2014). In other words, although decision-makers may not be able to be held accountable for their decisions that have long-term consequences ex-post, they can be held accountable ex-ante. 3 Therefore, getting policymakers to give an account of, explain and justify their decisions about long-term policy issues would foster ex-ante accountability in public governance.
Transparency
Transparency is “a key accompaniment to accountability” (Schmidt, 2020: 47). Transparency refers to when “citizens and political representatives have access to information about governance processes and that the processes along with the resulting decisions are public” (Schmidt and Wood, 2019: 732). Although many situations could benefit from more transparency, it may impair the quality of deliberation in governance processes. For example, open discussion may cause policymakers to worry about what a broad public or the mass media might say, rendering their arguments shallow or lacking in reason (Chambers, 2004). Mansbridge (2009: 386) thus argues that “transparency in rationale,” rather than “extreme transparency in process,” should be ensured in governance. Extreme transparency in process requires that any deliberations and negotiations are public. By contrast, transparency in rationale only requires that procedures, information, reasons and the facts on which the decisions are based are public, allowing the deliberations and negotiations to be conducted behind closed doors.
Schmidt (2020: 47) holds that the “underlying assumption related to transparency is that information can empower citizens to hold public officials accountable for their actions and performance, with the goal of improving public services or reducing corruption and clientelism” (Schmidt, 2020: 47). Public officials can be accountable to citizens without sharing every detail of their discussions when they give the reasons and facts behind their actions and performance (Mansbridge, 2009). Hence, transparency in rationale can be seen as a component of throughput legitimacy.
Making data publicly accessible can improve transparency because it is essential to reproduce and check the truthfulness of the information and knowledge on which decisions are based (Stupak et al., 2021: 35). In addition, public governance can become more transparent when information and knowledge are publicly accessible, as they can help people understand the meanings and implications of the data used to make decisions (Stupak et al., 2021: 35). Therefore, transparency in public governance is improved when data, information and knowledge on which political decisions with long-term consequences are based become publicly accessible.
Openness and Inclusiveness
Openness can be defined as the degree to which members of the public—whether as individuals or as part of organized groups—have access to policymakers and opportunities to engage in the policymaking process on issues of interest to them (Schmidt and Wood, 2019). Inclusiveness refers to policymakers’ commitment to remain open to all such groups and individuals while ensuring balanced and fair representation (Schmidt and Wood, 2019; Schmidt, 2020).
Ensuring openness and inclusiveness entails the active participation of a broad range of stakeholders in the decision-making process on specific policy issues. Such stakeholder engagement is not equivalent to representing the potential interests of future generations, as not all stakeholders involved in long-term policy debates will act in support of those potential interests. Instead, some organized groups may represent specific businesses through lobbying activities or testimony in parliamentary hearings (Schmidt, 2020). These groups might oppose policy investments if the businesses they represent are expected to incur short-term costs as a result (Jacobs, 2016). Therefore, the openness and inclusiveness of public governance should be understood as distinct from the normative goal of representing future generations—an aim more directly associated with the concept of input legitimacy.
This characteristic of stakeholder engagement suggests that their involvement can put political decision-making at risk of being captured by interest groups that prioritize immediate benefits over the longer-term interests of society or future generations. This concern about “democratic capture” (MacKenzie, 2021: 6) may be addressed, at least in part, by ensuring both openness and inclusiveness. In particular, Schmidt (2020) argues that greater inclusiveness can help prevent specific organized interests from dominating policy formation or implementation. By extension, ensuring inclusiveness opens the door to engaging not only stakeholders who may oppose policy investments but also those who support them. Therefore, fostering both inclusiveness and openness may help mitigate the risk of democratic capture—especially when such groups already exert substantial influence over the policy process.
That said, ensuring greater openness and inclusiveness does not necessarily guarantee that democratic systems will become more future-regarding. Certainly, these qualities can enhance throughput legitimacy and may also help strengthen output legitimacy, provided that the stakeholders involved are supportive of policy investments. However, as mentioned above, stakeholders can have varying—and sometimes conflicting—interests and mandates (e.g. lobbying for or against policy investments on behalf of businesses and industries). Furthermore, even if a wide range of stakeholders is involved in the policymaking process, disparities in influence among them may persist (Koskimaa et al., 2021). If some—even if not all—influential stakeholders oppose such investments, broader engagement may fail to counteract harmful short-termism—or worse, may actively obstruct necessary policy action. As a result, broader stakeholder involvement does not always translate into better outcomes with respect to mitigating short-termism. In this way, efforts to improve throughput legitimacy by increasing openness and inclusiveness may ultimately either complement or constrain output legitimacy.
Implications for the Roles of Future-Regarding Institutions in Public Governance
Our discussion so far suggests how future-regarding institutions might contribute to the normative legitimacy of public governance. If such institutions can represent future generations, as previous studies suggest (e.g. Gonzalez-Ricoy and Rey, 2019; Rose, 2019; Smith, 2021), they can be understood as mechanisms for improving input legitimacy—provided that future generations are considered part of the current demos and that representing members of the demos enhances the legitimacy of public governance.
Future-regarding institutions may also strengthen throughput legitimacy when they promote ex-ante accountability among policymakers, improve the transparency of the facts and reasoning behind political decisions with long-term consequences, and/or ensure openness and inclusiveness in consultation processes with stakeholders on long-term policy issues.
Moreover, if these institutions implement one or more measures to mitigate harmful short-termism identified in Section 2.3, they can help governance authorities address long-term collective problems, as previous studies have suggested (e.g. Caney, 2016; González-Ricoy, 2024; Smith, 2021), thereby contributing to enhanced output legitimacy.
Table 1 summarizes these mechanisms for enhancing the normative legitimacy of public governance, along with the underlying rationale for each in terms of input, throughput and output legitimacy.
Potential Pathways to Enhancing the Legitimacy of Public Governance.
Our discussion also highlights the ambivalent consequences of enhancing the throughput processes of public governance in relation to output legitimacy. Specifically, we argue that promoting openness and inclusiveness can help prevent policymaking from falling prey to democratic capture by fostering broader stakeholder engagement. However, we also identify a potential tension arising from such involvement—namely, a trade-off between enhancing throughput and output legitimacy. This reveals a broader normative dilemma in public governance: efforts to improve throughput legitimacy through greater openness and inclusiveness may, in some cases, undermine the capacity to address long-term policy challenges if stakeholders driven by short-term interests are empowered.
Real-World Examples
In this section, to illustrate how future-regarding institutions may contribute to the normative legitimacy of public governance, we examine two real-world examples: the Committee for the Future in Finland and the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales. The Committee for the Future represents a future-regarding institution within the national parliament, while the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales serves as an arm’s-length body of the government. These examples are illustratively used to show how such institutions engage across all three phases of public governance, rather than only the input and output phases, and to identify the functions that may enhance normative legitimacy. To this end, we describe the roles these bodies perform and discuss why these functions can be seen to contribute to each pathway to legitimacy, drawing on the theoretical framework of legitimation developed in the previous section.
Our research method was both archival and interpretive. We analyzed the Committee for the Future and the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales to illustrate and contextualize our theoretical argument. Research for both cases was interpretive, drawing on a wide range of primary and secondary sources—legislation, policy reports, news articles, memoirs and scholarly analyses—that illuminate the functions these bodies perform across the three phases of public governance.
Committee for the Future in Finland
The Committee for the Future was established as a temporary committee within the Finnish parliament in 1993 “to deliberate problems of our common future, and thus also the rights and responsibilities of future generations” (Tiihonen, 2009: 239). The Committee then became permanent in 2000. It has 17 members of parliament as regular members and nine as substitute members, reflecting the balance of the parliamentary groups (Eduskunta, n.d.). The members are appointed for a 4-year electoral period, and four clerks assist the Committee’s activities (Koskimaa, 2023).
Input legitimacy. Unlike other standing committees in the Finnish parliament, the Committee for the Future does not discuss legislative proposals or budgets (Koskimaa and Raunio, 2020). Instead, the Committee has a mandate to serve “as a think tank for long-term futures, sustainable development, and science and technology policy in Finland” (Committee for the Future, 2019: 3). The timeframe the Committee addresses is between 20 and 50 years into the future (Tiihonen, 2021).
The Committee plays a crucial role in a political process that is called the “Future Dialogue” (Koskimaa, 2023: 198). The Future Dialogue proceeds with three steps: the choice of themes for the government’s report, publication of the government’s report and response from the parliament (Koskimaa, 2023).
The Future Dialogue begins by choosing a theme for the “Government Report on the Future” (tulevaisuusselonteko) (Koskimaa, 2023: 200), which includes a declaration of the government’s will on a theme related to the future, such as a low-carbon future, sustainable growth and the future of work (Boston, 2017; Koskimaa and Raunio, 2020). The Prime Minister’s Office is responsible for preparing the Government Report on the Future, and the prime minister makes the final decision on its theme (Koskimaa and Raunio, 2020). Still, the Committee can influence the choice of theme through ongoing interactions with the Prime Minister’s Office (Arter, 2000; Koskimaa and Raunio, 2020). Once a theme has been chosen, the government prepares and issues the Government Report on the Future before the end of the parliamentary term. Then, after the report has been submitted to the parliament, the Committee prepares the parliament’s official response (tulevaisuusmietintö) (Koskimaa and Raunio, 2020: 167). In this response, the Committee can include resolutions that provide general instructions about the topics where the parliament wants the government to focus. It can also raise issues not included in the Government Report on the Future (Koskimaa and Raunio, 2023). The resolutions become effective after the plenary has voted to accept the Committee’s response to the Government Report on the Future, and they remain in force until the Committee is satisfied with the government’s response and abandons them. Therefore, resolutions can oblige current and future governments to consider long-term policy issues raised by the Committee, although they do not enable it to directly influence government policies due to their often abstract and general nature (Koskimaa, 2023; Koskimaa and Raunio, 2020). Some Finnish public officials see these resolutions as “a tool for genuine intertemporal policy-making” (Koskimaa and Raunio, 2020: 168).
Thus, although the Committee lacks the authority to scrutinize government bills, it has opportunities to introduce the potential interests of future generations, particularly at the stages of selecting the topic of the Government Report on the Future and making resolutions in the parliament’s response. In this way, the Committee can provide a political presence for future generations to policymakers. Because the Committee members consist of elected politicians, they receive authorization from and are accountable to Finnish voters. Hence, the Committee members can serve as surrogate representatives of future generations, especially in the Future Dialogue process rather than the ordinary legislative process.
Throughput Legitimacy
As mentioned above, through the Future Dialogue process, the Finnish government issues its Report on the Future, and the Committee for the Future plays a leading role in preparing the parliamentary response. In addition, the government must respond to how it has dealt with the resolutions included in the parliamentary response (Koskimaa and Raunio, 2020). Thus, the Committee functions to increase the transparency of the government’s foresight processes and enable the government to be held more ex-ante accountable for its decisions about long-term policy issues (Koskimaa and Raunio, 2023).
The Committee has also attempted to involve a wide range of individuals and interest groups in its activities. Since the 1990s, the Committee has regularly interacted with various non-state actors, including non-governmental organizations (NGOs), businesses and researchers, during the Future Dialogue process (Koskimaa and Raunio, 2023). For example, the Committee consulted with stakeholders such as the energy, forest and technology industries, as well as academic experts and think tanks, in preparing its 2019 response to the Government Report on the Future (Committee for the Future, 2019). These interactions led to the creation of the National Foresight Network in 2005, institutionalizing the involvement of non-state actors (Koskimaa and Raunio, 2023). This network was later integrated into the national foresight system under the coordination of the Prime Minister’s Office. Furthermore, the Committee for the Future invites a group of retired citizens to its regular meetings to discuss the Committee’s projects, and it conducts interviews with citizens of various age groups, including students aged 18–25 and upper secondary school students (Groombridge, 2006). These stakeholder engagement and public participation activities promoted by the Committee help ensure greater openness and involvement in public governance processes.
Output Legitimacy
The direct impact of the Committee for the Future on Finnish politics has been questioned due to the lack of legislative roles and the weak connection between the Committee’s foresight activities and public policies (Boston, 2017; Koskimaa and Raunio, 2023). It has been pointed out, however, that the Committee has an indirect influence on Finnish politics (Koskimaa and Raunio, 2020). Indeed, the Committee can organize expert hearings, travel abroad to become acquainted with new developments, and conduct inquiries into future-regarding issues, different options and the prospects and possible dangers of new technologies (Tiihonen, 2021). Since 1997, the Committee has produced more than 100 publications, averaging around 100 pages each, which cover topics from climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and emerging technologies to societal transformation, international relations and the future of democracy (Boston, 2017; Koskimaa and Raunio, 2020). 4 An interview survey found that the Committee’s foresight activities have occasionally had “positive spillover effects” on the perspectives of various policy experts, ranging from ministries to NGOs, regarding how they think about the future (Koskimaa and Raunio, 2023: 694).
Furthermore, former members of the Committee often attain powerful positions in government, including as prime minister, and can advance themes learned through the Committee’s activities (Koskimaa and Raunio, 2020; Tiihonen, 2021). Thus, the Committee for the Future has served as an “important training ground for early career politicians” to learn and shape their thinking about long-term collective problems (Smith, 2023: 159). Hence, the Committee’s workings have great potential to activate future-related interests and concerns among its members and other policy experts.
Another function of the Committee is to enhance policymakers’ capacity to analyze long-term policy issues. Through their committee work, Committee members gain specialized policy expertise that makes their scrutiny of the government’s actions better informed (Koskimaa and Raunio, 2023). In addition, as mentioned earlier, the Committee has regularly interacted with a wide range of non-state actors, such as researchers, NGOs and businesses. Creating and strengthening such connections with non-state actors has enabled the Committee to outsource expertise and expand the scope of information available to politicians and the executive branch (Koskimaa and Raunio, 2023). Thus, the Committee increases the chances that policy decisions are better informed and tempered by a long-term perspective.
Future Generations Commissioner for Wales
The first Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, Sophie Howe, started work in 2016 for a 7-year term under the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 (hereafter, the Well-being Act). Since 2023, Derek Walker has served as the second Commissioner. As of 2025, the Commissioner’s office has a staff of 23 (Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, 2025).
Input Legitimacy
The Well-being Act specifies the rules of recognition for selecting an individual as the Commissioner. The qualified person must not hold any other office or position, for example, the Crown, a member of an assembly or parliament (such as the Welsh Assembly, the House of Commons/Lords and the European Parliament), or a member of a country council (Well-being Act, Schedule 2, section 6, 2015). The final selection is made by the Welsh ministers, who appoint the Commissioner in consultation with the responsible committee of the Welsh Assembly (Well-being Act, section 17, 2015).
The Commissioner has the general duty to promote sustainable development by acting “as a guardian of the ability of future generations to meet their needs” and encouraging public bodies, including the Welsh government, “to take greater account of the long-term impact of the things that they do” (Well-being Act, section 18, 2015). While the Well-being Act does not specify how far the Commissioner should take the future into account, the second Commissioner describes the Well-being Act as “a law that protects people now, and those born in the future, so they have what they need to thrive for their whole lives, and leave behind a liveable planet” and that the act “is about improving lives now, next year, in 25, 50, 100 years into the future―and beyond” (Walker, 2024).
The Commissioner can advise and assist public bodies in addressing climate change and meeting their well-being objectives in accordance with the sustainable development principle (Well-being Act, section 19, 2015). The Commissioner can also provide advice and evidence for the Welsh Assembly members, staff and committees (Boston et al., 2019). Indeed, several committees of the Welsh Assembly—such as the Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee and the Public Accounts Committee—have sought the Commissioner’s input on government bills, policy reviews and the scrutiny of public bodies (Boston et al., 2019). Thus, while the Commissioner does not have a direct relationship of authorization and electoral accountability with voters, the Commissioner can introduce the potential interests of future generations into decision-making by public bodies and Assembly members. Given these characteristics, the Commissioner can serve as a proxy representative of future generations.
Throughput Legitimacy
The Commissioner can review public bodies and, based on this review, make recommendations (Well-being Act, section 20, 2015). Since the Commissioner’s recommendations are not binding in law, a public body can decide not to follow the recommendations unless the Welsh government compels the public body to do so (Davies, 2017). However, public bodies must publish their responses to the Commissioner’s recommendations, regardless of whether or not they are following them (Well-being Act, section 22, 2015). Furthermore, the Commissioner makes recommendations based on a wide range of expertise and information, which makes it difficult for public bodies to depart from them. Therefore, public bodies “need to supply well-founded arguments to justify their departure” from the recommendations (Davies, 2017: 174).
A notable example of the Commissioner’s accountability efforts is the debate over the M4 motorway extension/relief road in Gwent (Davies, 2017). The Welsh government’s plan, originating before the Well-being Act, aimed to extend the M4 motorway through the Gwent Levels, a wetland of environmental significance. In a public inquiry, the first Commissioner argued with evidence that the plan would harm the biodiversity of the wetlands and was incompatible with the Well-being Act, urging the Welsh government to consider alternatives (Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, 2017). This highlights the Commissioner’s role in promoting accountability in policy implementation.
Both Commissioners have attempted to involve a wide range of stakeholders and individuals in their work. For example, the first Commissioner developed the Strategic Plan 2017–2023 for her 7-year term in consultation with 1300 people and organizations in Wales via an online tool, workshops and face-to-face conversation sessions (Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, 2018; Smith, 2021). Similarly, the second Commissioner developed a new strategy for 2023–2030, called Cymru Can, by consulting with more than 1400 stakeholders across various sectors in Wales, including members of the advisory panel, public bodies and voluntary organizations, as well as representatives of local authority areas, business enterprises and trade unions (Office of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, 2023a, 2023b). The Commissioner must consult with those stakeholders and individuals to periodically publish the Future Generations Report (Well-being Act, section 24, 2015). These stakeholder engagement and active public participation strategies promoted by the Commissioners demonstrate their contributions to ensuring greater openness and inclusiveness of various stakeholders and the wider public in public governance processes.
Output Legitimacy
The Future Generations Commissioner for Wales is an arm’s-length body of the Welsh government with delegated authority to monitor and advise on the performance of public bodies (Well-being Act, sections 18 and 19, 2015). However, the Commissioner has no authority to implement policy on behalf of the Welsh government or other public bodies. Therefore, the Commissioner can be regarded as an advisory body rather than an agency. As mentioned in Section 2, advisory bodies can help reduce harmful short-termism by insulating policymaking from political pressures. However, in the early days, the appointment by Welsh ministers raised concerns about the Commissioner’s ability to resist political pressures (BBC News, 2015). Despite these doubts, the Commissioner’s work on the M4 motorway extension/relief road shows promise that the Commissioner can challenge governmental intentions. Although concerns about governmental influence remain due to the institutional design, the Commissioner’s potential to shield certain political decisions from pressures to seek short-term policy benefits is undeniable.
The Commissioners have also helped public bodies and policymakers implement the Well-being Act, collaborating closely with the Welsh government and Assembly to reframe policy debates on long-term issues (Boston et al., 2019). The second Commissioner has continued this strategy. In 2024, the Commissioner’s office launched the Ways of Working Progress Checker, a tool that guides public bodies and other organizations through a series of questions on each aspect of the sustainable development principle defined by the Well-being Act, helping them apply the principle (Office of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, 2024). Thus, the Commissioner has contributed to activating the future-related interests and concerns of policymakers and public bodies, which, as mentioned in Section 2, is a potential way to reduce harmful short-termism.
Implications for Future-Regarding Institutions in Enhancing the Normative Legitimacy of Public Governance
Based on the details provided in Section 3, Table 2 summarizes the future-regarding institutions’ members, their functions, and the types of legitimacy possibly enhanced by each function.
Summary of the Composition, Functions and Potential Legitimizing Roles of Two Future-Regarding Institutions.
The institutional functions that can potentially contribute to input, throughput and output legitimacy are marked with an “X.”
Brunner et al. (2012) argue that a legal obligation for the government to regularly obtain and respond to the advisory body’s recommendations helps the body gain authoritative standing. We see evidence of this pattern in the cases of the Finnish Committee for the Future and the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales.
The Committee for the Future does not scrutinize legislative proposals and budgets. However, the Future Dialogue allows the Committee to influence the themes of the Government Report on the Future. The Committee can also issue resolutions instructing the government, which must explain how it has addressed these resolutions in its Report on the Future. These resolutions remain in force until the Committee is satisfied with the government’s response. Thus, through the Future Dialogue process, the Committee can help maintain long-term policy issues related to future generations on the government’s agenda (Koskimaa, 2023).
In Wales, the Future Generations Commissioner’s recommendations to public bodies are not legally binding. However, public bodies are required to publish their responses and provide reasons and alternative actions if they choose not to follow the recommendations. Given that the Commissioner draws on a wide range of expertise and information to formulate these recommendations, substantial and convincing justifications are necessary for any deviations.
In short, while neither the Committee nor the Commissioner holds significant policymaking authority, their roles in promoting ex-ante accountability and transparency help create conditions under which decision-makers take their input into account.
These two cases suggest that the functions of future-regarding institutions, which contribute to throughput legitimacy, can also help prevent tokenistic political representation of the potential interests of future generations. If decision-makers can easily ignore input from future-regarding institutions, the political representation of future generations risks becoming tokenistic. Strengthening ex-ante accountability and transparency can counter this risk by requiring public justification, thereby encouraging more careful consideration of the potential interests of future generations.
Nevertheless, future-regarding institutions may face the “problem of plurality” when representing the potential interests of future generations (Karnein, 2016: 87; see also MacKenzie, 2021; Smith, 2020). This issue arises from concerns that the judgments of a single representative, such as the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, can be limited by their perspective. Future generations will likely have diverse and sometimes conflicting interests, as they will live in different times and/or have varying conceptions of what a good life is. Therefore, the ability of one individual to adequately represent the plurality of potential interests within and across future generations has been questioned.
The Future Generations Commissioner for Wales has engaged various stakeholders to shape strategic plans, contributing to greater openness and inclusiveness. These activities indicate that the Commissioner has engaged a wider public, moving beyond hearing only from those already active on long-term policy issues (Smith, 2020). Therefore, this engagement might bring a diversity of voices and perspectives on the interests of future generations into the Commissioner’s work. However, the problem of plurality remains, as the Commissioner has the discretion to integrate insights from stakeholders with varying and sometimes conflicting views on those interests (Smith, 2020). Hence, it remains to be seen how a future-regarding institution can address the problem of plurality while seeking greater openness and inclusiveness.
We also note the possibility that institutional functions designed to ensure openness and involvement may contribute to enhancing the output legitimacy of public governance, as illustrated by the case of the Finnish Committee for the Future. The Committee’s interactions with non-state actors in the Future Dialogue process have included businesses and NGOs, thereby expanding the foresight information available to policymakers. Strengthening policymakers’ analytical capacity regarding long-term policy issues is a potential way to reduce harmful short-termism, and such reduction can improve output legitimacy.
Businesses may contribute by introducing technological innovations and identifying solutions to long-term policy challenges, drawing on their insights into broader trends and emerging developments (Koskimaa et al., 2021). However, as noted in Section 2, their involvement also carries potential risks. If businesses that oppose certain policy investments are included as influential stakeholders, their participation may hinder efforts to address these challenges. This dual potential underscores that enhancing throughput legitimacy does not necessarily align with strengthening output legitimacy. To achieve such alignment, future-regarding institutions must consider not only how broadly and inclusively stakeholders are engaged in long-term policymaking, but also whether their involvement meaningfully supports effective policy solutions—without focusing solely on the particular interests of either current or future generations.
Conclusion
Public governance involves exercising political power and authority to manage the public affairs and resources of a nation or region over long periods. In theory, future-regarding institutions can contribute to the normative legitimacy of such governance by representing the potential interests of future generations, improving the throughput quality of governance processes, or helping to reduce harmful short-termism.
Examples from Finland and Wales help contextualize how these institutions can fulfill such roles. The Finnish Committee for the Future may act as a surrogate representative of future generations, while the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales may serve as their proxy. Both institutions exhibit features of throughput legitimacy by eliciting government accountability and engaging a diverse range of stakeholders. They have also contributed by fostering long-term thinking among policymakers, strengthening analytical capacity and helping to shield certain decisions from short-term political incentives. These functions may, in turn, enhance output legitimacy.
These cases also suggest that institutional functions aimed at improving throughput legitimacy can complement both input and output legitimacy. Their emphasis on ex-ante accountability and transparency may encourage decision-makers to consider the potential interests of future generations. In addition, ensuring openness and transparency can help government officials and policymakers effectively address long-term policy challenges.
We suggest three questions for further research. First, if future-regarding institutions can enhance the normative legitimacy of public governance, do their institutional design features influence this potential? As noted earlier, members of the Finnish Committee for the Future have shaped their views on long-term policy issues through their committee activities. However, there is concern that elected politicians may prioritize short-term policy gains (e.g. Smith, 2020; Thompson, 2010). While advisory bodies like the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales are not electorally accountable, they may still face political pressures. Future research could examine how specific institutional design features influence these institutions’ capacity to enhance input, throughput and output legitimacy.
Second, how can future-regarding institutions leverage stakeholder engagement to enhance input and output legitimacy? Examples from Finland and Wales show that these institutions have actively engaged a range of stakeholders in their operations. However, since not all stakeholders support policy investments, future research could examine how such institutions navigate the potential tension between enhancing throughput and output legitimacy. In addition, while stakeholder engagement may bring diverse perspectives on the potential interests of future generations, it warrants further investigation as to how future-regarding institutions integrate insights from multiple—and sometimes conflicting—stakeholders into their decision-making or policy recommendations. Further research could also explore how members of these institutions consider and address the plurality of potential interests within and across future generations while pursuing greater openness and inclusiveness in governance processes.
Finally, if future-regarding institutions contribute to the output legitimacy of public governance by reducing harmful short-termism, how effective are they at achieving this? The effectiveness of an institution could be evaluated by distinguishing between output, outcome and impact (e.g. Szulecki et al., 2011; Tallberg et al., 2016). Future research might assess the effectiveness of future-regarding institutions in reducing harmful short-termism in terms of output, conceptualized as activities produced by the institutions; outcome, conceptualized as changes in the behavior of target communities; or impact, conceptualized as the effect of observed behavioral changes on harmful short-termism.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
Earlier versions of this article were presented at the European Consortium for Political Research General Conference 2022, the 28th Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies Annual Conference 2023, and EcoDesign 2023. The authors thank the audiences at these events for their valuable feedback. They also thank Keishiro Hara, Okka Lou Mathis, Shinji Onoda, Michinori Uwasu, Chiara Valsangiacomo, and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
